If possible get from the public library a book on Boy Scouts or Camp-Fire Girls. Bring it to school and either tell or read parts of it to your classmates.

XIII. CHAPTER TEST

Bring it to school

Find a picture that you like. and write the story it tells you. Try to choose words that will tell exactly what you mean.

Be careful in your use of capitals and marks of punctuation.

CHAPTER NINE

RHYMES; WRITTEN REPRODUCTIONS; SPEAKING CORRECTLY; USING THE DICTIONARY; QUOTATIONS AND CAPITALS

Note to the teacher: Do not forget that the teachers' Manual was made to be used hand in hand with the pupils' book. The latter is not complete without the former.

I.

STUDYING A FABLE IN RHYME

The Ant and the Cricket

A silly young cricket, accustomed to sing

Through the warm, sunny months of gay summer and

spring,

Began to complain, when he found that at home
His cupboard was empty and winter was come.

Not a crumb to be found

On the snow-covered ground;
Not a flower could he see;

Not a leaf on the tree.

"Oh, what will become," said the cricket, "of me?"

At last by starvation and famine made bold,
All dripping with wet and all trembling with cold,
Away he set off to a miserly ant,

To see if, to keep him alive, he would grant

Him shelter from rain;

A mouthful of grain

He wished only to borrow,

He'd repay it tomorrow;

If not, he must die of starvation and sorrow.

Said the ant to the cricket: "I'm your servant and

friend,

But we ants never borrow, we ants never lend;

But tell me, dear sir, did you lay nothing by
When the weather was warm?"

"Not I.

Said the cricket:

Go then," said the ant, " and dance winter away.'

Thus ending, he hastily lifted the wicket

And out of the door turned the poor little cricket.
Though this is a fable, the moral is good :

If you live without work, you must live without food.

The divisions of a poem are called stanzas. How many stanzas are in this poem about the ant and the cricket?

How many lines are in the first stanza?

How many lines are in the last stanza?

How does the first word in every line begin?

STUDYING A FABLE IN RHYME

119

The first word in every line of poetry begins with a capital letter.

In the eighth line of the second stanza is the contraction "he'd." Read this line.

"He'd" is a contraction of he would. The apostrophe (') takes the place of what omitted letters?

In the first line of the third stanza, what contraction do you find?

What words have been contracted?

The apostrophe takes the place of what letter? Read the words of the ant in the first four lines of the third stanza.

To whom is the ant speaking?

What does he call the cricket in the third line? How are the words "dear sir" separated from the rest of the sentence?

Read the eighth line in the third stanza. What does the ant call the cricket in this line? How is "sir" separated from the rest of the

sentence?

You have already learned that the name of the person spoken to, or addressed, is always separated from the rest of the sentence by a

comma.

When the name comes in the middle of the sentence, as:

But tell me, dear sir, did you lay nothing by when the weather was warm?"

or,

"You sang, sir, you say?"

two commas are necessary one to separate the name from the first part of the sentence and one to separate it from the last part.

When the name of the person addressed comes at the beginning or at the end of a sentence, only one comma is needed, as:

"Dear sir, did you sing?"

"You say you sang, sir?"

Read the third line in the last stanza.

What does the word "moral" mean?

The moral of the fable is found in the last line. Read it.

II. SPEAKING WORDS CLEARLY

1. Read the following groups of words, saying "to" clearly. Pronounce it just as you pronounce oo in the word look.